Moments before Korbin Rice and Cooper Freeman notched the 2026 RodeoHouston win March 21, reigning RodeoHouston champ Derrick Begay gave the young guns some advice that stuck with them to win the $65,000-a-man title.
“Begay told me before we went out there, I had asked him how fast they were going to go into the short round, the final four,” Rice, originally from Hobbs, New Mexico, recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Man, it’ll happen pretty fast. They may drag and then go right into it.’ He came up to me a minute later and he’s like, ‘This is the fun part. We get to go out here.’ And I thought about that a little bit before we went out there and I was like, this is the fun part. The stress is over, we’re guaranteed $10,000; catch, miss or fall off, it doesn’t matter. It’s been a great week, let’s just go make a good run and finish it out.”
And they did. Rice and Freeman topped the four-man Championship Round with a 4.6-second run to rake in $70,750 a man in their trip to Houston. At just 24 and 23, the win is the largest of their budding careers.
“I’m not sure that it’s sunk in yet, but it’s great,” said Carthage, Missouri’s Freeman. “It was just kind of stuff that took place to let us win. It was just pretty cool. It was the coolest rodeo I’ve ever been to and to win it was pretty dang cool for my first time there.”
The RodeoHouston win skyrocketed Rice and Freeman to No. 1 in the 2026 PRCA world standings with $85,400.74 won on the year thus far, putting them in unfamiliar territory.
“It’s obviously a great feeling, especially knowing you’ve got that much won before you leave for the summer,” Rice said. “But I’ve never really been in this spot. I’ve left in the summer in June headed out and maybe had $14,000, $15,000 won, max. So, whenever we go to leave for the summer all the way, I’m sure it’ll be like, ‘Holy cow, we’ve really got that much won.’ But as of right now, I don’t know, it’s kind of a weird, crazy feeling.”
RodeoHouston Marathon
Rice and Freeman’s route to the RodeoHouston win didn’t start off how they imagined. They kicked off their Houston marathon in Super Series IV with an illegal head catch in Round 1. Despite a no-time and not loving their steer for Round 2, they knew they were still in the fight with two more chances at money.
“We came back the next night and didn’t love our steer, but we knew he was a good enough chance we could probably place in the round,” Rice said. “Everything just worked out and we won the second round. I was pretty stressed before the second round, but that made us feel a lot better.”
Their 5.7-second run pocketed them $3,000 a man for the round win. Heading into the third and final round of their super series, they knew they were in a pretty spot to advance to the semifinals.
“We were last out in the third round, and we had a pretty strong steer again,” Freeman explained. “All the steers in our set were pretty strong besides maybe a couple. It was just a very soft night. We were actually like 7.3 and won second in the round. I think we had it sewed up to make it back to the semifinals anyway, but we knew if we caught another one, we’d be guaranteed. So, we just ran out there, caught him and won second.”
Another $2,000 apiece punched their tickets to the semifinals and gave them a few days off before their next steer. At third out in Semifinals I, not much had been done before they roped. They turned in a 5.5-second run to win fourth for $750 a man and to move on to the finals.
“Our steers were a really good set of steers in the semifinals, and looking back now, it’s kind of crazy what all took place,” Freeman admitted. “Because we were fourth in the semifinals and then we were fourth in the top 10 to make it back—somebody making a good run could have changed the whole week for us. It’s pretty crazy to see how God’s got his hand on it; He had a plan for us.”
Rice and Freeman were 5.1 seconds in Saturday’s 10-man finals, and while they didn’t think they were safe, it was enough to move on to the four-man Championship Shootout.
“By that point, honestly, the stress was over,” Rice said. “I mean, me and Cooper talked about it before, ‘This is the fun part. We get to rope against three guys, let’s go and make the best run we can on our steer.’ We were first out, so I did not want to miss by any means, but it was just a fun round. We got to go first, and we went and made a good run. We’re 4.6, and I really didn’t think that that was going to be enough to win the rodeo. Stuff just fell the way it fell.”
In the end, Rice and Freeman’s 4.6 was worth $65,000 a man for the RodeoHouston title.
Horses in H-Town
On the head side, Rice rode a 12-year-old gelding that came from two-time World Champion Chad Masters. Prior to being in Rice’s herd, Masters let him ride “Papa Rock,” registered LJ Jumpin Jack Flash, his Resistol Rookie year in 2024. Rice rode him majority of the summer and knew he needed him on his team. Thanks to the Ariat WSTR Riata Open Finale win in Vegas that December for $111,500, Rice finally got his opportunity.
“Chad has just been awesome to me ever since I even started rodeoing,” Rice said. “Even before I rodeoed, I’ve kind of been around there. He let me ride him for probably two or three years and wouldn’t sell him. Finally, he came up to me while we were in Arizona and told me, ‘Man, I think it’s time. I need to do something with him.’ He gave me the option if I wanted to buy him, and I was like, ‘Absolutely. If the money’s not there, I’ll get it put together.’ He’s Like, ‘I know you will. It ain’t no big deal on that, but if you want him, he’s yours.’ Ended up everything worked out. Right after that, we ended up winning the Finale in Vegas. So that was a huge help as far as getting him paid and whatnot. I felt good about it after that, and I was like, yeah, I’ve got to have that horse.”
Freeman rode a 10-year-old gelding he bought last summer from a friend in Idaho.
“Honestly, a couple of my other horses had been hurt for a little bit, and I was riding a younger horse and he came along at a perfect time,” Freeman said. “I was needing another really good horse, and I ran five steers on him practicing and bought him. It was kind of one of them deals you don’t really know how it’s going to go, but he’s been a huge blessing for me. He don’t hardly mess up, and he’s just really easy to rope on.”
A leg up
Though their lead in the world standings is unfamiliar for the pair, it didn’t come out of nowhere. Rice and Freeman had already put together a strong winter—and it’s part of the reason they were even in NRG Stadium. They didn’t qualify for RodeoHouston through the Top 31 in the 2025 PRCA world standings but instead got in by sitting inside the Top 3 of the 2026 standings by Dec. 1.
“Once the rodeo season got over, we got after it,” Freeman said. “We did some wild stuff to get to the rodeos that we needed to, to get enough money won. I think we have right at $80,000. That was the plan, but to believe it—to be in that spot—is kind of unbelievable, honestly.”
While the RodeoHouston win gives them some cushion for the remainder of the year, it isn’t drastically changing their 2026 strategy.
“We’re still going to go to California, and we’re really not backing off of the entering as far as right now goes,” Rice said. “We’re still planning on going and doing the whole deal. Like I said, we’re going out to California and staying out there three or four weeks, going to Guymon probably, Corpus Christi and Nashville. I mean, there’s just a ton of great rodeos before you even have to leave for the summer.”
For Freeman, the confidence boost might mean just as much as the earnings cushion.
“It gives you crazy confidence, and it takes a lot of pressure off, too,” Freeman said. “There’s still a lot of pressure to do good to get the [NFR] sewed up, but to kind of already be over the halfway point before California is a crazy feeling.”
